Starting a business is hard work, so it would be nice if you could sit back, relax, and just watch your business grow. Unfortunately, that’s not reality. For as much work as you put in to starting your new company, the truly hard work has just begun. According to a report republished at Forbes Magazine entitled Growing Businesses, Growing Our Economy, you must commit to scaling up your business to have the best chance at long-term success. This starts with a firm commitment to growth.
How Big Do You Want Your Business to Get?
You would think that every entrepreneur wants his or her business to grow, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Some only want to earn a certain amount of money to support their family and lifestyle while others can’t wait to make it big. However, it takes more than wishing to make the latter happen. This means creating realistic growth targets along with measurable goals on how you will achieve business growth. Working with a small business advisor at this stage is especially valuable.
Mid-Level Scaling Up Tasks
A person who founds a company obviously has different skills than those with more general management capabilities. If your company is to grow, it requires the combined skills of many different people. This includes everyone from accountants to experienced executives to human resources personnel. When building your first team, make sure that it represents a broad range of skills as well as a group of people whose skills and personalities complement one another.
To adopt a growth mindset means to establish partnerships with organizations and people not within the company walls. You will need a network of partners, including suppliers, sales channel partners, service providers, and most importantly, customers. These alliances will only make your company stronger as it continues to grow.
Advanced Scaling Up Tasks
Your start-up company may feel like an extension of yourself and it is in many ways. This can make it difficult to develop standard processes and start delegating tasks. If you can’t do this, it will eventually impede your business growth. Be prepared to invest in systems to help you accomplish this, such as new IT systems and training your employees to take over tasks.
Do you know your core competencies? If not, you need to. In fact, you should sit down to create a report that identifies and emphasizes what your company does well that enables it to remain competitive. It’s difficult to create business growth without these strategies.
Finally, make sure that you periodically view your business from the perspective of a customer. That goes back to the previous step of knowing your competitive strengths. The danger of always viewing things from your own perspective is that you won’t plan future growth based on what customers truly want and need.
Wherever you are in the scaling process, we’re here to help. Lowcountry Business Advisors in Greater Charleston, SC strives to use our experience and passion to help business people achieve their goals. Let’s meet for coffee and see how we can work together.
